Three Times And You're Home
by A Damned Scientist
Summary: Nine year old D'Argo Sun Crichton runs away from his parents when visiting the Bluevortex Shopping Complex and has an Educational Experience. A festive (Christmas) Farscape tale, of the old-fashioned, unfluffy sort.


A festive Farscape tale, of the old-fashioned, unfluffy sort. It may well bear a passing resemblance to some previous fanfics as well as the odd book and movie, but then, this is well-worn territory.

Written in response to BlueCatShip's challenge for SC74: _Your story challenge begins with Little D on a planet for an outing, a month or two after his (9__th__) birthday, when everything is going fine until Little D gets angry at being called "Little" and runs off or gets separated from whoever he's with. What happens to the son of a Sebacean Peacekeeper and a Human Astronaut then?_

In line with SC74, this is set several years post PKW, so expect appropriate spoilers.

Thanks: To Vinegardog for betareading, including making a really excellent 'continuity' suggestion. Also to BCS for the challenge.

**Three Times And You're Home**

"But WHY!" D'Argo Sun-Crichton protested loudly. A hundred pairs of eyes, and a hundred and one more sets of eyes that weren't arranged in conventional pairs, shot either disapproving or sympathetic glances towards John Crichton and his nine year old son. All of the censorious sets of eyes seemed to quickly look away, though, when met by a full Peacekeeper glare from the boy's leather clad Momma Bear. A surly-looking Peacekeeper was still a surly-looking Peacekeeper, whether you were in the lawless Uncharted Territories or in one of Interia's finest shopping malls. That she was also heavily pregnant only added to the 'Do Not Mess' aura she was radiating.

"Because it's tiring for mom being pregnant and it's tiring for your sister just because she's littler than you." D'Argo looked up at his dad, then across to his mom, who was standing hand in hand with Suzhanna, his five cycle old sister. 'Zhanny seemed tired, sure, but mom… D'Argo thought he saw another flash of mom's Angry Face, but, surprisingly, this time it was directed at dad, not at D'Argo. D'Argo started to count down from ten in his head, interested to see what would happen next and when. Yes, mom had certainly given dad a nasty glare, but she had said nothing and eventually did nothing. Parents were so frelling weird. Weird and inconsistent.

This trip planetside was supposed to have been D'Argo's belated ninth birthday treat, a chance to visit the giant Bluevortex commerce-and-entertainment complex on Interia Prime_, _a chance to do things he wanted to do. D'Argo's heart had soared when they'd first arrived. As they'd walked inside from the transport-park he'd caught sight of the entertainments hall, a darkly-decorated and dimly-lit adolescent's dream, filled with virtual electronic delights. Then his heart had sunk as they had walked straight past and on towards the shops. Dad had insisted that he needed a new set of T-shirts and mom had sided with him, saying she could do with some new Calvins, whatever they might be.

So far they'd been here two arns, done nothing that D'Argo had wanted to do, and now it looked like dad and mom were going to drag him off to some boring refreshment hall just because mom was two weekens pregnant and 'Zhanny was…. The krendar suddenly dropped in D'Argo's mind: Dad had said she was littler than him! That implied dad meant he was little! The part of his mind where his mom's temper and his dad's bloody-mindedness mixed started to boil over. That really was the last straw!

"I am NOT little!" D'Argo protested, drawing on his considerable inherited reserves of obduracy. He stuck out his bottom lip and harrumphed. His mom, annoyingly, arched a sceptical eyebrow and snorted her disdain from on high. His sister stifled a giggle. Only dad seemed to treat his protest with the seriousness it deserved. Dad cocked his head and peered sympathetically down at D'Argo. It looked like he was getting ready to deliver one of his incomprehensible human homilies.

"Little is as little does…" dad began. If there was anything more to the speech, D'Argo didn't hear it. He might have only been nine cycles old, but he knew full well what dad meant by that opening. The red mist finally descended in full force and the next thing he knew he was running through the crowd, dodging shopping bags and abdomens from a dozen assorted species, and assorted other anatomies of a dozen more. He thought he could hear mom's voice screaming at him to "Get back here!" and dad's to "Stop, son!" but their demands were soon swallowed by the hubbub of the crowded commerce complex.

D'Argo hadn't set out with a clear idea of where he was going: he just needed to be away from his frelling parents. However, he wasn't entirely surprised, that when his legs finally relented carrying him off, he found himself in the dingy entertainment hall. It was where he had wanted to go all along, after all. Bright displays of a multitude of games, some immersive Virtual Reality machines, others that dad would call the 'old-fashioned' kind, twinkled around him, providing almost the only light in the enormous room. Bigger kids, mostly in close knit groups milled around, each keeping strictly to themselves. A trio of Interion girls looked down their noses at him then turned away giggling and laughing. Then a group of Luxan boys eyed him suspiciously, but then moved on, probably more afraid of the complex's security guards than they were keen on taking advantage of a single Sebacean boy.

D'Argo squared his tiny shoulders in the way he'd learnt from his mom, held his head high and marched deeper into the hall, acting like he owned the place. This was a youngsters' paradise, after all. This was where he had wanted to miss-spend his day.

"You!" D'Argo heard a hostile, teenaged male voice shout from behind him. D'Argo ignored it. "You! Funny-looking Sebacean kid! Are you deaf?" the voice shouted again, this time accompanied by a shove on the back of D'Argo's shoulder. He spun around, only to find his shoulder clamped by a large Interion boy's hand. D'Argo looked up at his new acquaintance: he looked about mom's size, as did his two friends. None of them looked at all friendly. "Looks like you've lost your mummy," the teenager sneered.

"Watcha doing here, squirt?" One of the sidekicks sniggered and cracked his knuckles. D'Argo suspected it was a rhetorical question.

"We gonna have a bit of fun with the little squirt, Rolon?" asked the third boy. Rolon tightened his grip painfully on D'Argo's shoulder. For the second time in a couple of macrots D'Argo didn't like where a conversation about him was heading. Ever since he could remember his mom had insisted on inflicting regular self-defence classes on him and for a microt he felt a warm glow of gratitude towards her for doing so. He twisted out of the boy's grip and lashed out with his leg at his captor's groin. The boy screamed in shock and pain: Target acquired and destroyed.

"Don't call me little!" D'Argo demanded as he darted away from the crumpling teenage bully and his two disbelieving acolytes. He needed to find somewhere to hide, and quickly, before the bullies recovered and set off in pursuit.

D'Argo reached out a hand and made a flying 90-degree turn around the corner of a giant virtual reality kiosk at the edge of the games room, just as he had seen Auntie Chi do a thousand times before aboard Moya. That was when he saw his salvation, or at least what he hoped would be his salvation, a place he might manage to hide out from the bullies, a place where they would not be seen in a million cycles.

A giant fantasy grotto, aimed at delighting pre-pubescent children with its charming whimsy, had been constructed by the building owners as part of their end-of-cycle celebrations. Growing up, D'Argo had heard that such things could be found on many planets, including his dad's, but he had never seen one before in real life. Apparently the parents of younger children would take them inside to entertain them with bright lights and fancifully decorated rooms. The ultimate goal of most of these places, though, was to meet with the generous and jolly old mystic who held court in the central chamber and to get the gift of a toy from him. D'Argo was fairly confident that a trio of teenage bullies wouldn't be seen dead in such a place.

D'Argo paused in his flight and looked behind him for his pursuers. He could hear their shouts getting closer and closer. There was no time to tarry. He turned back towards the grotto, saw a portal trimmed with a swirl of electric-blue lights and dived headlong inside….

…to find himself plunging, headlong and out of control down some sort of chute. Swirling blue and white lights flashed by on either side as the tunnel twisted and turned for what seemed like much too long a time considering the limited size of the grotto.

With a breath-taking thud and causing an eruption of what seemed to be snow, D'Argo came to a sudden halt.

He was face down in about two denches of the snow-like stuff. The silence was extraordinary – surely no other place in the commerce centre had sound insulation like here! He did a quick mental inventory to check that nothing seemed to be broken and slowly rolled back onto his haunches. He must have come all the way to the heart of the grotto. He was in some sort of frozen tableaux, all snow and ice. It was underfoot, on the pointy, conical trees, falling from the air. The overall effect was amazing. If he hadn't known better D'Argo would have sworn they were outdoors on some snow-bound planet.

A portly, white-bearded, black-eyed, but otherwise Sebacean-looking man sat nearby on a large wooden throne. Apart from a red velvet suit trimmed with white fur, he also wore a look of perplexed amusement which was aimed in D'Argo's direction.

"Hey you must be….?" The man reminded D'Argo a little of Sandy Claws from some of the books dad had read him when he was little. D'Argo couldn't quite bring himself to finish the sentence. It was too ridiculous, too childlike. The man did not respond – he merely stared at D'Argo with his inscrutable, black eyes.

"My name is…" D'Argo tried again, only to be interrupted before he had fully introduced himself.

"Unimportant to our encounter." The man spoke in a curiously flat tone. D'Argo's mouth 'caught flies' for a few microts before the man spoke again.

"You are here to seek a gift." Yes, definitely Sandy Claws. That's who the man reminded him of – the figure from some of dad's stranger childrens' story books. D'Argo decided he'd call the man that, if he wouldn't tell him his real name.

"I am?" D'Argo queried. How the frell would Sandy know what D'Argo was here for?

"I am here to affect that outcome." D'Argo shuffled nervously, his hand subconsciously searching his hip for a gun but not even finding trace of a holster. "What is the most important thing?" The man intoned portentously.

"Um, dad always says family," D'Argo ventured. He was a little uncertain what to say: Sandy was downright peculiar. D'Argo chewed on the pad of his thumb as he tried to figure him out a bit better.

"Is this also your opinion?"

"Um… I guess?"

"Then why are you here?"

"Huh?"

"Why did you run away from your family?"

"I… they…" D'Argo floundered. Why had he run away again? As time passed and events got stranger, his reasons seemed less clear cut than they had. And how did this man know he had?

"Your gift has been chosen." The black eyed figure stated still without apparent emotion. His line of conversation made D'Argo think that he was a long way from being the jolly old man that dad had described in his stories. Perhaps in the equivalent stories on Interia he was an aloof middle-aged man?

"It has?" But before D'Argo could question the old man further there was a bright flash, an accompanying audible crash and a tremendous sensation of dislocation.

D'Argo found himself in what looked like a large, brightly lit and functional office. Mom, Dad and Zhanny were all there, dressed as he had seen them earlier today, as were a couple of Interions who, from their uniforms, looked like security for the commerce complex. One was a male, the other a female. Both wore the earnest faces of the professionally concerned.

"…he just ran off, I couldn't get through the crowds quickly enough!" Dad seemed really anxious about something as he spoke to the male security officer. Mom and Zhanny were sitting on a small, utilitarian sofa, clinging to each other. Or was that Zhanny clinging to mom and mom comforting his sister? D'Argo spotted that Zhanny was sniffling back tears, her reddened eyes and blotchy complexion further confirming to D'Argo that she must have been crying recently, and crying a lot, although she had now regained something of her usual composure.

"Mom, dad!" D'Argo called out enthusiastically, the reasons behind his earlier flight from the family unit now almost forgotten.

"They cannot hear you," D'Argo's otherworldly companion swept an incorporeal arm through the body of the male security officer by way of demonstration.

"Do you have a holo-image of your son, Mr Lyczac?" asked the female security officer. Her manner was all kindness and sympathy, quite at odds with her stern uniform and muscular physique. "A picture, even?"

"But that's not our name!" D'Argo blurted out, before suddenly remembering that they always used an alias, usually that one, when they were amongst strangers. Then he remembered all of the lectures about how so many people might want to hurt their family, all the warnings about how they had to be extra-careful, to stick together and look out for each other. He felt a little relieved that mom wouldn't have heard him and so wouldn't get angry with him for blowing their cover.

"Umm, no, but if you could just…." That was dad again, trying to keep things on track. D'Argo knew dad always kept images of the family with him. But he also felt sure that dad would be unlikely to give or even show them to a stranger: it would be too much of a risk.

"Frell it, John!" That was mom, barely keeping it together by the tone of her voice. "We should be out there trying to find him, not in here wasting time with these…" D'Argo could now see his mom's face clearly for the first time. She had a strange expression, one which he couldn't recall ever having seen before. Her face partly wore that grim, determined look that he was well used to, the one which said that she had set her mind to achieve something and wouldn't stop until she did so. But there was also something else he could see on her features, something new, something unfamiliar to him. She looked almost hollow. He peered closer.

"Honey! They've got security cameras, they've got lots of people, they can call all the shopkeepers…"

"And while we're stuck in here who knows who could have found him!?" D'Argo was shocked. He'd never seen his mom in such a state before. She looked as though she was about to lose it, and not in her characteristic angry way. She looked like she was about to break down completely.

"OK, I get it, I get it!" D'Argo urged his black-eyed companion. "I shouldn't have run off! I know! But they just pissed me off by treating me like a little…."

"That is because, to them, you are little," stated the black-eyed figure. "And their experiences have made them terrified of losing you."

"Yeah, I heard all the stories," D'Argo dismissed with the casual, know-it-all nonchalance of a child.

"Hearing is not the same as seeing." D'Argo's companion lifted a hand.

There was another flash and crash and feeling of dislocation.

D'Argo found himself transported to some sort of large, dark room, with deep shadows and an unwelcoming air of menace etched into every visible feature. A Sebacean woman in a yellow smock was strapped to some sort of metal frame, her face obscured by the torsos and arms of a high-caste male Scarran and, incongruously, a plain-looking, middle aged Sebacean woman. They were standing to either side of the woman on the frame and leaning across her. Everything about the couple who were standing suggested to D'Argo that their intentions towards the other woman were not friendly. Indeed, the woman who was standing was brandishing some sort of fiendish metallic medical instrument, holding it over her charge like a threat.

"You lied!" Bellowed the Scarran at the restrained woman, confirming D'Argo's assessment of the situation. "We found record of Vendrall DNA! Your embryo is not the product of one of Vendrall's sons!"

"Well Lechna lied to me!" replied the woman on the metal frame, her trembling voice somehow reminding D'Argo of his mom's confident tones. D'Argo moved closer trying to see, terrified at the thought that it might really be his mom on the metal frame, but needing to know nonetheless.

"There is no Lechna!" The Scarran shouted back at the woman.

"There is - Lechna!" The yellow-clad woman replied almost hysterically. And now D'Argo could see – it was indeed his mom strapped to the metal frame. She looked pale, tired and thin. He could see bruises all over her. Spittle frothed around her mouth and on her cheek.

"Get away from her!" D'Argo screamed, taking a step forward, only to be stilled by the gently restraining hand of his companion.

"They cannot see or hear you. You cannot touch them. These events took place before you were born." The black-eyed man stated calmly to D'Argo as the argument raged around them.

"But…!" D'Argo protested, glancing at the man's emotionless face and then back to his mother. That was when D'Argo recognised her expression – the same one that he had seen only microts before in the commerce station's security office: determination mixed with… now he recognised the extra looks as despair and hopelessness.

"Your mother was trying to protect you, but she had few options." Sandy Claws explained.

"Protect me?" D'Argo whispered with considerable uncertainty.

"No! Please!" Aeryn begged, crying now as the other Sebacean woman vacillated over injecting her with more of whatever the fiendish syringe contraption contained.

"AGAIN!" shouted the Scarran.

"STOP IT! SHE'S TELLING THE TRUTH!" Pleaded another prisoner from her nearby restraint in the shadows of the room.

"AGAIN!" This time the Sebacean collaborator reluctantly acceded to the Scarran's bidding, leaning in to deliver another injection to D'Argo's helpless mom.

"No please don't! NO!" Aeryn implored her captors, but it was no use, the injector was already in place, the plunger depressing, delivering its evil load.

D'Argo watched in horror as his mom's eyes rolled up in their sockets and she began to foam at the mouth.

"Please, sir, I don't want to see…!" D'Argo begged. But he was his mother's son, and he did not cover his eyes or look away. "… anymore!"

"Very well." Sandy Claws nodded solemnly. "However, this lesson still requires further illustration."

There was another dislocating flash and crash.

D'Argo found himself on Moya's command, home to thousands of fun games while mom or dad stood their watches and hundreds of lessons where they told him about Moya, space and what they were doing. On this occasion, though, the familiar chamber was unusually crowded. A score of people from several species were scattered all around. Some of the people he recognised, like Aunty Chi and uncle Rygel, others he didn't – they were a mix of Luxans, Sebaceans and Eidelons. All seemed to be dishevelled and dirty and some were injured. All of them were staring in what seemed to be shock or fear at something that they could see out of the main view screen. D'Argo turned to see for himself what held everyone's attention.

A giant swirling, red, orange and black maw filled the portal. Even in his incorporeal state D'Argo found the sight simultaneously both awesome and terrifying.

"The wormhole weapon," D'Argo's companion exposited. "This is the day that you were born." He added more quietly.

"You are weak!" A Scarran stated stridently across the ship's comms. "You will not sacrifice the woman and your offspring."

"Our son will be raised in peace!" His mom stated, her tone defiant, totally devoid of fear despite the thing swirling malevolently outside the view portal.

"Amen!" echoed his dad, before launching into the sort of long, wordy lecture that D'Argo was well-used to being on the receiving end of. "You hear that, you….?"

"Why are you showing me all of this?" D'Argo protested, ignoring his dad's sermon. However, even as he spoke he realised the answer to his question: his mom and dad loved him. They'd do anything for him. Even destroy the universe. Which was, frankly, just frelling crazy.

"You are present to learn…"

"What, that they'd have been better off if I'd never been…?" He'd obviously driven them to do some pretty fahrbot things.

"That is counter-factual," stated his dead-eyed companion with a single negative shake of his head. He waved his hand and another snap and crash of displaced reality brought them to another time, albeit not to another place.

Moya's command was now choked with smoke from half a dozen small fires. Sparks cascaded in fits and starts from broken conduits and damaged consoles. A number of bodies lay scattered about the chamber, their identities indiscernible to D'Argo. As he stood frowning at this latest scene one of the crew forced himself up onto his elbows.

D'Argo almost gasped in recognition. Despite the dirt and blood streaking his face, despite the age-lines and grey hair, the man struggling to rise was still clearly his dad.

"Aeryn?" His dad asked with a frown, staring behind D'Argo, in the direction of one of the main doors onto command. "Is it really you? After all these cycles?"

"Crichton," a familiar, but oddly emotionless voice confirmed from behind D'Argo. He could almost see mom nodding in his mind's eye from her manner of speaking alone. The boy stepped back and turned to see his mom advance into the chamber. At least, the woman he saw looked and sounded a little like his mom, despite the short cropped hair, the angry, long-healed scar across one side of her face and the pulse rifle she held trained on dad.

"What, umm..? Hey, remember me?" His dad ventured. There was nothing but stony silence from mom in reply as she slowly advanced. As she moved forwards she determined that each of the three bodies she passed represented no threat by means of a quick shot from the pulse pistol held in her left hand. One of the bodies convulsed as she did so. Mom showed no expression, dad grimaced in what looked like horror. All the while mom's rifle never strayed from being targeted on dad. "Ahem," Dad cleared his throat to try again. "Didn't we meet at a party a few years back?"

D'Argo could not ascertain whether dad's strange question, so typical of him, elicited any emotional response from mom at all: her expression and demeanour betrayed nothing at all beyond maybe a slight twitch from the skin around her eye on the unscarred side of her face. She swallowed and opened her mouth to speak.

"We are here because your activities could not be allowed to continue…" mom replied, seeming to misinterpret his question. She halted, a few steps from where dad lay propped on his elbows amidst the debris. She holstered the pulse pistol on her hip and touched a comms device on her cheek.

"Sun here. Primary and secondary targets secured."

"So, I heard you were pregnant?" Dad tried to connect with her again. "How'd that work out?"

"Why couldn't you have just laid low, Crichton?" Mom ignored him, shaking her head and frowning as she pursued her own line of rhetorical questioning, tangential to John's.

"Is the kid…? Are they OK?" Mom gave the tiniest shake of her head, but otherwise no other response to his question. "Dead?

"He was never…." Aeryn's frown deepened, as though trying to remember long-forgotten details. She steadied her rifle with her newly-freed hand. "He… he died cycles ago."

"Before or after you joined the assassination squad?"

"Does it matter?" She snapped her eyes up and down, as though not quite believing she was having this conversation. D'Argo suddenly realised that they were talking about him, and also that mom was now showing some signs of emotion.

"No, I guess not," John shrugged. It was not an easy thing to do in his current predicament, propped up on his elbows, an assassin's rifle in his face. "All that matters is that you're…." he began to hold up a conciliatory, open hand towards her.

"You mean _nothing_ to me!" She interrupted, spitting the words out as a flash of anger drove the frown from her features. She redoubled the grip on her rifle. "NOTHING! You are no more than an assignment, Crichton!"

The words seemed to hit dad like a slap across the face. He blanched, shrank back from them and blinked.

"Then go ahead and shoot, darlin'." John sighed wearily. "Coz there ain't nothing else left to be done."

D'Argo watched in horror as his mom began to squeeze the trigger….

"I don't wanna be here anymore!" D'Argo heard himself protest.

A loud flash and crash rocked D'Argo, spinning his reality, shaking it to the core.

He blinked, gasped and took a couple of deep breaths. Then he looked around him. They were back in the snowy grotto.

"Where is it that you most wish to be?" Sandy Claws enquired.

"Mom, dad… Zhanny." D'Argo whimpered. "Family."

"A wise man once told me that everything starts with family," Sandy Claws nodded solemnly. "Until the next time, young Crichton."

There was no disjointing crash of the senses this time. Without preamble he found himself standing in a large office. It looked like the same large office where Sandy Claws had begun this strange journey.

D'Argo blinked, his eyes taking in more details of the room. A few motras away dad was standing talking to two uniformed security guards. Mom had her back to D'Argo and was seated on a low, utilitarian couch, holding Zhanny in a tight hug.

"Dad?" D'Argo almost whispered, used now to the idea that no one could see or hear him. "Mom?"

Dad's head turned in D'Argo's direction, a look of slack-jawed shock on his face. Mom sprang from the couch faster than a drannit fleeing a brindz hound, somehow setting Zhanny down on the way.

"Dee! You're safe! Thank Cholak!"

"Oh, mom, dad, I'm sorry! I promise I'll never again!" He heard himself trying to assure them, even as he was swept up into a double parental embrace.

"Where you been, son?"

"I hid out in the kids' grotto. The Sandy Claws man… he… he brought me back," Dee twisted and lifted his arm to indicate his red-robed companion. But as his head turned, his forehead creased into a frown: Sandy Claws had vanished. D'Argo stared hard at where his companion had been standing, wondering if he was just imagining the tiny, swirling blue vortex of melting snow which seemed to last for just a microt before it, too, disappeared.

The end

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

ADS


End file.
